


Violent Delights, Violent Ends

by GwendolynGrace



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Codependency, Edwardian Period, F/M, First Time, Heavy Petting, Implied Child Molestation, Insanity, Internal Monologue, Matricide, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Murder, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Pre-Canon, Puberty, Sibling Incest, Unhealthy Relationships, VERY UNDERAGE, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:14:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: Thomas Sharpe loves his sister. But he also fears her. For while she is devoted, strong, and fiercely protective, she is also her mother's daughter.TW for underage incest, pubescent body exploration, violence, and--well, everything the movie implies.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pear/gifts).



> For the prompt: _I love the high gothic romance of this, the grim and strange hunt that Thomas and Lucille do for wealthy wives. I want to know all about that. Whose idea was it? How did it happen? How did Thomas and Lucille end up in their desperate, dark love?_
> 
> This is perhaps the darkest, most twisted sort of story I have ever written. Dear Pear, I hope you were in earnest when you said your author could go grim. In my defense, everything here is confirmed or heavily implied by canon, but it's the type of thing most people find inherently squicky. Nonetheless, I am equally fascinated by the "us against the world" attitude of the Sharpes, and their Flowers in the Attic dynamic. So here's an exploration of that.
> 
> (If it helps other readers, I seem to be personally incapable of envisioning any other version or age of Thomas and Lucille besides an adult Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain - which is probably the only way I was able to write certain scenes (ahem) - so y'all have my full permission and encouragement to mentally age them up.)

From the time he was three, Thomas crawled into bed beside Lucille nearly every night. It was especially true when it was cold, or when Mother had punished her. He was too young to understand everything, but he could piece together that Lucille's pain was his fault, that it was the result of something he had done. He would cross the nursery floor, creep into her bed, stroke her hair, and whisper, "Do you still love me?"

Lucille always wrapped her arms around him and kissed his forehead or his cheek, and said, "Of course. Of course I do, my sweet." And even when it must have hurt tremendously, she would caress him and soothe him until he fell asleep. 

As he grew older, he knew enough to offer to care for her. He thought of it as penance for causing the situation in the first place. He tried--Lord above, he tried!--not to earn Mother's or Father's ire. It was sometimes unavoidable. He came to realise that there were times when nothing he or Lucille did or did not do could spare them from their parents' wrath. Once he tried to talk Lucille out of interposing herself. "It's not fair that you tell me to run and hide," he told her.

"Shh. I'm older, and I know better. You're frail, Thomas. I'm not. I'll never let them touch you."

"But--"

"I said no." Lucille's voice rang with determination and even a bit of danger. She sounded so like Mother that she frightened him. He began to cry. She immediately grew contrite. "I'm sorry. I'm not cross, Thomas. Honestly, I'm not. It just hurts, that's all."

"It's my fault, though," Thomas insisted. "My fault you have to stand it for both of us."

"No, never," said Lucille, and she ran a bruised and bloody hand across his cheek. Mother had smacked her cane right over her knuckles when Lucille had tried to shield her face from the blow. "You are perfect and pure and I'm going to keep you that way." She leaned forward and kissed him again, lips partly open to linger against the smooth skin of his forehead. He breathed in the scent of her hair and nuzzled his way under her chin, like a kitten seeking assurance from its mother. He kissed the hollow of her throat and buried his head against her.

He remembered the first time Lucille touched him, the first time he had touched her. She was nine, and he seven. They had retreated to his little attic all day; it was a crisp spring evening, cool, but not cold, and the fire had been more than enough to keep them cosy. Lucille had half a loaf of bread and some cheese from Mrs Palaver the cook, and they had their tea without any fear of repercussion. Mother and Father were in town, some sort of charity function they couldn't refuse to attend. Lucille quipped, "Keeping up appearances," and described her vision of the scene of domesticity they presented outside Allerdale Hall. "They'll pretend to everyone that they're still content with each other, that they have a perfect marriage and a perfect family. Father will say condescending platitudes about the church or the poor or whatever they're meant to be supporting. Mother will cluck her tongue as if she cares, and neither will commit to anything. They'll come home feeling smug and self-important."

"Does that mean they won't, er…?" Thomas asked quietly, trailing off. He didn't like to even voice the bad things. Lucille knew what he meant, anyway.

"We might have a day or two before they notice us again," Lucille pronounced gravely. She chewed her toasted cheese with thoughtful concentration. Thomas, who had already eaten his bread and cheese (because Lucille toasted his first, and then made her own), hopped off his chair to fetch the little figure he'd been whittling. He presented it to his sister. 

"I made this for you," he said. He demonstrated how he'd fashioned the dancer so that her arms could move above her head. 

"She's lovely, Thomas," Lucille told him. She ran her fingers under the wide winged collar of his shirt, then tilted up his chin to kiss him on the mouth. She tasted of cheese and bread and the birch ash from the fire. 

Thomas returned the kiss. He put his hands around her like a dancer holding his partner. She stood willingly, toe to toe, Thomas's head just short of hers. He twirled her tentatively, remembering the two or three lessons he'd had before the winter had set in. Mother had decreed that they would resume as soon as the roads were reliably passable again; Thomas surmised that would be soon, if Mother and Father had travelled themselves. Lucille began to sing their lullaby for accompaniment. Before long they were no longer dancing properly, just holding tight to one another and swaying to Lucille's song. Thomas dropped his cheek to Lucille's chest.

"It's softer," he observed. 

"What is?"

"Your chest. Here." Thomas brought up one hand to press lightly on the lump of flesh that he had felt beneath his head.

Lucille giggled. "That's my bosom, sweeting," she told him. "Hadn't you noticed before?"

Thomas shook his head. "But _women_ have bosoms, not _you_."

"Well, I'm going to _be_ a woman. Soon." She broke away and came to sit again. "Mother says I'll have to start wearing a corset soon, too."

"Why?" Thomas followed, dropping to his knees to sit against her leg. 

"Because she wants my bosom to grow properly." She petted his hair absently. "So I'll grow up pretty enough to fetch a rich husband."

Thomas crinkled his nose. "I don't want you to marry a rich husband. I don't want you to marry anyone. If you got married, we couldn't spend our days together."

"I'm not getting married, ever," Lucille assured him. "I told you, we'll always be together. Never apart."

"Never apart," Thomas echoed. "Can I...touch it again?"

Lucille slid forward off the seat onto her knees on the hearthrug with him. She held his gaze with her eyes and carefully, slowly, unfastened the buttons of her shirtwaist blouse. Her pale flesh lay exposed, only slightly bruised from her last beating. The bluish-yellow marks glowed in the firelight and gave her skin a sort of shine. 

"Mother did that," Thomas pointed out, "but it's my fault. Do you still love me?"

"Of course."

"I'll kiss them better," Thomas said. He leaned over and gently pecked the dots along her sternum. Lucille reached down for one of his hands and carefully placed it over the swell of one budding, tiny breast. Thomas's hand was small and soft around the gentle curve. His lips parted as he felt the spongy fat underneath. He squeezed it just a bit, experimentally. Lucille gasped.

"Did I hurt you?" asked Thomas, his hand jerking back.

"No. It felt...good." She reached for his hand again; he offered it and she placed it once more to cup her breast. This time, she kept her hand over his and guided him to massage the small mound. She brushed her own thumb over her nipple. "Oh. Do that."

"Do what?"

"What I just did. Here." She moved his thumb for him. He repeated the motion on his own, back and forth. Lucille hummed pleasantly, "Mmm." She scooted closer, reaching around his back to pull him even closer. "Keep doing that," she told him. He pushed up onto his knees so that he could put his other hand on her other breast. "No," she said decisively. "Not both at once."

"All right." Thomas bit his lip in concentration. Lucille's eyes fluttered closed and she leaned backward, so Thomas eased her onto her back. On his knees and one hand, he manipulated her tiny breast with rapt attention to her face. She kept one hand near his, but eventually it fell to her side. Thomas brought his head closer and closer, until he could see her skin pucker into gooseflesh from his breath. He dipped his mouth toward her and kissed the space just inside the web of his thumb and forefinger. 

Lucille gasped again, the same noise she had made before, so Thomas knew that this was not pain. He dropped another feathery kiss onto her breast, and her hand found his hair and corded through it. Encouraged, he aimed a kiss directly onto her perked nipple. Lucille's hand tightened on his skull, holding him in place. He suckled on her like a babe until she lifted his face with both hands. "Thomas," she said, her voice thick and breathless.

"What?" he asked, concerned although he could not have said why. Had he done something wrong? Was she cross?

She searched his eyes for a moment, as if looking for the answer to his question. But instead of telling him anything, she merely pressed him downward again, this time to the breast she had previously declared off-limits. Thomas did not need to ask; he repeated his attention to this one, and was rewarded by Lucille's hands rubbing his back in comfortable strokes. Eventually she lifted his chin again and pulled him down to lie against her shoulder. "Thomas?"

"Yes?"

"Never tell anyone about this. About what we did today."

"Why would I?" he asked innocently.

"Indeed."

=^=^=

Lucille was crying, silently, her little tremor in bed the only sign of it. Thomas left his bed and padded to hers, drew back the coverlet and sheets and slid beside her. "What can I do?" he asked.

"There's nothing you can do," said Lucille. 

"Why don't we run away?" he suggested. 

Lucille scoffed. "I'm only ten; you're eight. Where would we go? They'd find us, and bring us back. There's no point."

Thomas could not disagree. Over the years they had learned that any servant who dared lift a finger to help them was dismissed shortly afterward. No one would aid them and they could not go far on their own. Especially in winter. "Do you still love me?"

"Of course." Lucille twisted gingerly, making sure not to lie on her back. She curled one leg around his ankle. Although she was still taller than he, she pressed her face against his shoulder and absently rubbed his arm. In the moonlight, he could see the purplish finger marks on her wrist where Mother had gripped her hard.

Thomas bit his lip. "Do--do you want me to...I mean, should I--"

"Not tonight. But if you like, I can--." 

"Oh. Yes, I suppose. Only if you want." Lucille began to sing very softly. Her hand left his arm and slipped beneath the covers; a moment later he felt her lift his nightshirt. He hitched his hips off the mattress so that she could get the fabric over his hips. Her fingers feathered up his thigh, up to his stomach, and then down ever so gently between his legs. His breath hitched and he grew instantly hard. Her hand cupped around his length and she squeezed. Thomas closed his eyes and let her handle him. 

They had discovered this action a few months previously, and though it felt odd to him at first, as Lucille continued, it grew more and more pleasurable. When he asked her how she had ever taken the notion to touch him there, she shrugged. "Father has all sorts of books in the library. Mother makes him keep them locked up. He can only look at them when she's taken to her bed."

"How do you know, though?" he'd asked.

Lucille's face darkened. "Because he showed me once. You were at your riding lesson. He wanted me to be ashamed, but I wasn't."

"Is that all he wanted?" Thomas asked.

"Shh," Lucille had said. "Let's never discuss that again. Do you want me to stop?"

"N-no…."

"Then don't ask me about Father."

That was her answer to almost anything, Thomas realised, that she didn't want to discuss. "Do you want this to stop? Then don't ask." He didn't want her to stop, of course, and he knew she didn't want him to stop, either. It was theirs, their secret, their way of making up for the way Mother and Father treated them, and no one could take it away. No one would do, she reminded him, as long as they told no one. Ever. 

He had only recently begun to realise that what they did together was something others would consider abominable. But he didn't care. It meant so much to Lucille. It was his best way to show her how much he loved her--and his best way to make sure that she still loved him. 

"Lucille?" he asked, back in the present, her hand pumping at him.

"Yes, love?"

"I--Are you sure I can't get you anything?" He longed to make her feel better in any way possible.

"No. I don't want you sneaking downstairs at this hour."

"But there is _something_ , then? Something you want?"

She withdrew her hand and sighed. "Are you unhappy, Thomas?"

"No. Well. I just want to make sure that you're happy. With me."

She levered herself up and took his jaw in one hand. "Always together, Thomas. I would do anything to keep you safe. But we have to be strong for each other. If we're not, they'll take me away from you. I won't be able to protect you. And you'll be all alone. And so will I. Do you understand?"

Thomas felt tears prick at his eyes. He sat up, too. "Never apart, Lucille, please--"

"Shhh…" She cradled him against her. "Never apart." She kissed him on the lips, reached down and seized him, and he stifled a different sort of cry.

=^=^=

It went on like that for another two years, as they gradually discovered more about themselves and each other. Then Father broke Mother's leg and shortly afterward embarked on a prolonged trip to the Continent. He threatened to bring Thomas with him, and Lucille had the brilliance to brew a sort of tea that made Thomas ill on the morning they were to depart. Father lost no time on him, remarking only that Lucille would have two invalids to take care of and had best see to them. She came upstairs before his carriage had even reached the gate.

"He's gone. And Mother's abed. We've the whole house, practically." Yet they still kept mostly to the nursery, or their bedrooms. They each had their own rooms now, but Thomas still crept into Lucille's bedroom where they would lie together, with the moths fluttering against the peeling wallpapers. 

As Mother's leg healed, her temper grew shorter. She expected Lucille to remain close at all times, so that they could barely go riding or take a stroll along the ridge without suffering Mother's wrath. At least bound in her chair, she could not do as much damage, but she tried.

The night that it happened, Thomas had retired to his own room because Mother was fussing about wanting to be bathed. Lucille told him it was going to be a lengthy process, so he had taken a book from the library and sat reading in bed. He must have fallen asleep, because when he woke, the lamp had burned low, and the fire was nothing but embers. He shivered, but forced himself to rise and build up the fire again. As he dove back under the covers, his door opened and Lucille came in, still in her daydress, but without boots. She never knocked--but then, neither did he. They had no secrets from one another. 

She shut the door behind her, then rushed at him and tore at his shirt. "What's wrong?" he asked. 

"Shh…" she told him, fierce and intense. She pushed him toward the bed. "I hate her," she spat in between possessive kisses. "I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!" With every pronouncement, Lucille grabbed at him, raked her nails down his skin, bit at his lips. Thomas held tight through the onslaught, but Lucille pressed him down underneath her. She batted his hands away when he tried to settle her, until at last she was pinning his wrists above his head. She pushed on them sharply.

"All right," Thomas told her. "Lucille, it's all right."

She slapped his mouth lightly--not enough to hurt, just to sting. "Don't say anything," she said. "Don't. She can't stop us."

"No one can," said Thomas, still bewildered. "Did Mother say something?"

"She's always saying things," was Lucille's only answer. She rucked up her skirt and straddled him, grinding against the hardness under his nightshirt. 

Thomas did not move his hands. "Will you let me help you undress?" he asked.

"No, just hold still and be silent," said Lucille. Instead, she sat back for a moment and pulled down her pantalettes, then folded the hem of his shirt out of the way. She moved back over him and lowered herself so that his shaft lay along the folds of skin between her legs. She began to rock back and forth, bracing her hands on his chest.

"Please can I touch you?" Thomas pleaded. His erection felt all jumpy and little electric shocks passed through as Lucille rutted on him.

Lucille said nothing, but she stilled. Then she reached out for his left wrist and, taking it in her hand, plunged it into the tight space between them. As she so often did, she cupped her own hand around his. Then she guided their forefingers up and inside her. It was slippery, wet and warm and so strange, Thomas almost pulled away. But her eyes glazed into pleasure as soon as she began to work their fingers around the hole, and her motion grew less violent, so Thomas let her use his hand. It made her happy. After a few seconds and some encouragement from Lucille, Thomas took over the motion himself. "More," she panted, and he added another slim finger. She wiped her sticky fingers on his cock, making it jump again. Then, she pulled up on it and lifted her hips away from Thomas's hand. He lifted with her, trying to maintain his contact. "No," she told him. He withdrew. To his surprise, she lowered herself onto his penis instead of his fingers. With an audible shuddering sigh, she sank onto his hips. The encasement was so utterly unlike the squeeze of her fingers, so encompassing and vibrant, pulsing with the tensing and relaxing of her muscles, that he was unable to keep from emitting his seed immediately.

"Aaaah…." he moaned as the sensation overpowered him. He dimly worried that Lucille would be cross that he had softened so quickly, and then he was overcome by an odd floating feeling that seemed to stop time.

"Thomas?" Lucille asked, hands cradling his face as so often before. Her fingers smelled tangy, a little like fish from the stream or the clay inside of the mine. "Thomas, are you all right?"

"Yes, I.... What was that?"

"That was called sex, but for us, it was making love. Do you want to try it again?" She was still on top of him; he was still inside her. He grew hard even before she finished speaking, and instinctively thrust deeper into her. She laughed. "Yes, darling, yes."

He came a second time, but at least it lasted a little longer. Still not long enough, he suspected. This time, Lucille separated from him to unbutton her shirtwaist and let down her skirt. She unlaced her corset and came back to lie alongside him, snuggled under the covers. Thomas caressed her breast, now more full and blooming. He kissed her deeply. "Never apart," he intoned.

"Never. Never apart."

While Mother was confined, they explored new ways to satisfy one another. They revelled in the lack of supervision. Perhaps that was why they grew careless. There were weeks while Mother was recuperating and they made love every night, sometimes even during the day, if Mother wasn't being too fractious. As she recovered, they tried to curtail their affections. Lucille said they had to do to protect the secret, but it was so difficult. Every moment they spent together, Thomas thought, the world fell away. Every moment they had to pretend to be merely brother and sister was torture. It was only a matter of time before Mother grew suspicious. 

Not long after she could get about without her chair again, she discovered them. Thomas still hated to think of that night. He mostly succeeded in blotting it from his mind. Mother had dragged him off of Lucille bodily, and before Lucille could intervene, Mother had thrown him out of his own room and locked the door. Naked in the corridor, he had cried and beaten his hands against the door while he heard Lucille inside, shrieking, and Mother screaming at her. Glass shattered; blows cracked with the slap of a cane against flesh; all to the ungodly tune of shrill voices raised in anger and pain. By the time Lucille's sobs subsided, Thomas was crumpled against the door, curled in a fetal crouch. He knew he should have run and hidden, like Lucille had always told him to do, but he was too afraid for her. So when Mother emerged, he was sitting there, an easy target. 

He'd been beaten by both Mother and Father before - there were times when Lucille could not save him from it. But this was unlike any pain he'd felt. She hit him with all her strength. She whipped him until his legs and back were swollen and bleeding, until he thought he might never walk again, and then she had pulled him up and proved him wrong. She forced him to walk to the lift, where she sent him to the pits and locked him in one of the cupboards filled with old equipment. But as savagely as she had wielded her cane, the damage had been blessedly temporary. Lucille, always the more determined, rose from her bed the next night, stole Mother's keys and let him out. 

"She's planning to send us both away," she told him, after she had ensconced him safely in the attic nursery. She wrapped him in blankets and rubbed his hands and feet to warm them again. "But it'll never happen. I'll make her sorry she ever touched you." Despite the fact that Lucille's pledge was directed at their Mother, at protecting him, Thomas shivered in fear. She was so vehement, so dangerous, that Thomas shrank back. 

"W-w-what are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going to make sure she never touches you again," Lucille promised. She caressed his cheek. "Always together; never apart."

Two days later, Mother was dead, but Lucille's promise proved untrue. They were separated anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

The next eight years were a living Hell for them both. Father rushed home to address the aftermath of Mother's murder. He arranged things so that there would be no investigation, no trial. Thomas was sent to school; Lucille to an institution. Each day without her felt like Thomas had a limb missing, or part of the sky. He was not allowed to write, or visit, or mention her name in Father's presence. He suffered terrible nightmares about how much worse it must have been for Lucille. Had Father not died, Thomas knew, Lucille might have languished there longer, but as soon as Father passed, Thomas sought her release. 

When they brought him to the solarium where she was seated, waiting, Thomas felt afraid. He felt suddenly like his six-year-old self again, newly aware that Lucille had been maltreated on his behalf. Would she forgive him? She was frail, and weaker than he'd ever seen her, with dark circles under her eyes and the strain of her treatment evident in the tightness of her mouth. He knelt before her and gently placed his hands over hers. "I'm here to take you home, my dear. Do you...still love me?" he asked.

Her eyelids fluttered and she focused on him. "Thomas," she said, but her voice sounded hollow and far away. "Of course I still love you, my sweet boy." He lifted her from the chair, and they embraced--as brother and sister, before the world. He circled an arm around her waist to support her as they left the asylum forever.

Thomas expected that the first few months might be a struggle, and they were, though not for the reasons he anticipated. He had feared that he would have to gradually bring Lucille back to him, but she came alive the first night as soon as they reached Allerdale again. Her passion rivaled anything they had ever done together as children. Now that they were adults, the intensity of their lovemaking carried them into paroxysms of pleasure more than half the night. They held each other afterward, a comfort and balm. "I'm afraid to close my eyes," Lucille murmured. "What if I wake up back there?"

"Never," Thomas said. "Never apart. Never again."

He meant it, but it was not without complications. Father's time abroad had been costly; what he had not spent on hotels and whores had been gambled away. They were desperate for money, and while Thomas had an idea for reviving the mine, it wasn't viable without capital. He had no other way of earning. He tried to get a loan but the banks would not extend credit to them, given the state of the house and Thomas's untried, untested scheme. 

"One of us will have to marry," Lucille announced one afternoon, pausing at the piano.

"One of us?" Thomas repeated.

"You, my dear. I said I never would do, and I never will do. But there must be hundreds of desperate, rich widows who would champ at the bit for a handsome young nobleman."

She outlined her plan; did her research; found the first candidate in London. She orchestrated the meeting, served as chaperone, left at just the right moment for Thomas to turn on his charm. 

And charm he did. He turned on his perfect puppy-dog smoulder, and Pamela Upton was putty in his hands. It was easy to fool her: she was a fool. She spent lavishly on him: new coat, new shoes, brandy and champagne. She even generously saw to it that Lucille met with her very own dressmakers, before the wedding. Thomas gritted his teeth and closed his eyes to the ways in which they were using her horribly. He told himself it was necessary for survival. 

It was easy, with Pamela, because he did not love her at all. He loved Lucille, even when she grew strangely obsessed with Pamela's interest in him. He reminded Lucille daily that they had to maintain their distance when Pamela was near; Lucille assured him that once his name was on all her accounts, they would dispose of her in short order. Indeed, Pamela's health began to decline almost immediately after they returned to Allerdale. 

Pamela died, and he knew Lucille had arranged it, but he said nothing. They had her money, and they had each other again. But something about Lucille had hardened, during the time he had courted and wed Pamela. In bed, Lucille straddled him and pinned his arms, as she had so many times since that first time, and said, "You're mine, Thomas, tell me you're mine and only mine."

"I'm yours," Thomas said willingly. "There's no one else, Lucille. There's never been anyone else. You're all I want--all I could ever want."

She bent to kiss him, and savaged his mouth. He arched into the contact, eager to please her as he always was. He knew it was his fault that she had to reclaim him from Pamela's spectre.

One time, he tried to take a business trip without her. Over breakfast in the solar, he casually announced his intention to go to Vienna for a conference on innovation in subterranean extraction. Lucille had grown unexpectedly cold. 

"You're leaving so you can meet someone new," she accused.

"What? No, of course not. It's going to be all crusty old miners and bookish engineers. I doubt there will even be five women altogether in the whole convention."

"You're lying," she insisted. "Sneaking about. Why else would you go without me?" 

"I...didn't think you'd want to go. If you do, by all means, then let's go together."

She slapped at him in frustration. "You said never apart. Were you just fooling, like you fooled that tramp? Or are you lying to me now?"

"No," he said quickly, alarmed. "No, Lucille, forgive me. Forget I suggested going by myself. Come with me, please."

"No, you don't want me with you, you're only saying it now to appease me."

"I do! I do want you with me." He reached for her hand to bring it to his lips, but she slapped him away. "Lucille," he pleaded, and slid from his chair to one knee before her. "Please. Please don't be cross with me. Please say you'll come."

Lucille gripped his wrist and twisted his arm hard. "You're not lying to me?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"No! I wouldn't...Lucille, please, that hurts." 

At his pronouncement, she looked down at his arm as if seeing it for the first time. She came back to herself with a start, dropping her hand. "What have I done?" she murmured, sinking back in her chair. "Oh, God, how could I hurt my sweet Thomas?"

"I'm all right," he assured her. "Come with me, if you want to go."

"I don't want to be alone," she replied, her voice cracking ever so slightly. Thomas leaned forward to kiss her hands, then her lips.

"You're not alone. I'm here. We'll always be together." After that, he never made any plan to travel without including her. They would be inseparable. It was the price he paid to keep Lucille calm and sane and under control.

When the money fell short again, the following year, he carefully picked a woman Lucille would never mistake for competition. Margaret McDermott was nearly 60--the same age Mother would have been--and thick-set and too jowly. She was also terribly realistic. She seemed entirely aware that Thomas was after her money, but she was strangely content to offer it. Yet aware or not, it soon became clear that she felt that money entitled her to liberties with her husband. 

It was only after Thomas married her that they discovered her first husband's lawyers had been more clever than expected. The new marriage had to meet certain criteria before any accounts could be adjoined or transferred. The delay, and Margaret's presumptions, enraged Lucille. And since she couldn't vent her anger on her sister-in-law, Thomas bore the brunt of it.

"Lucille, please," Thomas said for what felt like the hundredth time. Margaret was in her room, napping. "She's providing for us; it's not as if we're starving."

Lucille's hands faltered on her piano keys. "She put her hands on you," she insisted. "She thinks she has the right."

"But I don't love her, Lucille. Only you." He sidled next to her on the bench, but she shoved him away. He landed on the floor in a heap. She kicked out at him suddenly. 

" _You're mine_ ," she hissed. She resumed playing. 

Thomas found it difficult to catch his breath. He rolled onto his knees and tried to touch her elbow; she jerked her arm away and resolutely continued.

"I'm yours," Thomas said quietly. "Let me prove it?" Glancing furtively at the library door, he crawled under the piano. He edged forward until his knees brushed her skirts, then gingerly lifted the hem and reached a hand underneath. He caressed her booted ankle, the meat of her calf, the inside of her thigh. Lucille kept playing, her other foot working the pedals as if he did not exist. Thomas pressed her thigh open, and to his relief, she yielded. He folded up the hems of her skirts and ducked his head inside. Several inches of skin showed between her stocking garters and the bottom edge of her silk bloomers. Thomas feathered his lips to the spot. Lucille's song never faltered, but he felt her twitch. Encouraged, he stroked his thumb over the crease of fabric that cupped her quim. Her flesh tensed and then relaxed under his touch. She inched forward on the bench to give him a better angle. Thomas dropped his head toward her and blew out a breath of warm air, inhaled the scent of her snatch as he breathed in. Then he parted his lips and mouthed her through the thin silk. At last, Lucille's hands stilled; the music paused. She took up the tune with her voice, half humming, half sighing, and he felt pressure on the back of his head through the petticoats. Thomas redoubled his efforts, using his breath and tongue and teeth to tease her sensitive skin, growing more confident when she began to writhe and wriggle. She could not keep up the song anymore. He pushed his tongue inside as far as the fabric would allow, enjoying the faint taste that seeped through as she grew wetter. Her left leg rose from the floor and curved around his back. Thomas sucked and teased until Lucille was shaking with the effort not to scream. She slumped forward and her fingers slammed the keys, producing a discordant jangle. Thomas quickened his pace. She shuddered and came in her pants. 

He kissed the soaked seams once more before pulling away, though he left his hand there, applying light pressure to her folds. When he released himself from the tent of her skirts, he looked up at her and said, "There. Do you still love me?"

"Yes," Lucille panted. "Yes, I love you." She stood, grabbed his hand, and led him to the sofa near the fire. She lifted her skirts again, reaching down to untie the drawstring of her bloomers so she could pull them down. She kicked them off over her boots, removing them completely. She threw them into the fire and sank onto the settle. Holding out one hand, she threw one leg over the sofa back and braced the other on the floor. "Fuck me, Thomas," she said. "Here, where she has to see us."

"Where--who--M-Margaret?" he stammered.

"No. Her." She pointed up at the portrait of Mother. "I want her to watch us fucking."

Thomas shivered despite the heat of the fire. He glanced up at Mother's image and immediately fought a wave of revulsion. Even dead, she was still terrifying. "Margaret might come downstairs any moment," he cautioned. "Let's go to your room. We can--"

"I said here," Lucille ordered. "You'll fuck me here, now, Thomas, or I'll never let you touch me again. Is that what you want?"

His lip trembled. "No, don't, please--"

"Then prove how much you love me," she said. He stood rooted, still, although he was able to unbutton his fly while he gathered the courage to obey her. Lucille beckoned again. She caught one of his hands in hers and smoothed the skin under her thumb. She levered up to her knees and drew him gently forward, kissing him when he came close enough. "She can't touch you," she reminded him. "It's all right, Thomas. I want you inside me."

He surrendered to her kisses. He felt her ease his trousers over his hips and they fell toward his ankles. She dropped back to the sofa; he tumbled after her. Her hand found his balls to tease out a fresh erection. He shut his eyes, positioning himself by feel and with her direction. With every thrust, he prayed that she would forgive him, believe him, never abandon him. 

Afterward, pillowed on her bosom, he stroked her jawline lovingly. "Always together," he intoned.

"Never apart," she responded. "Thomas, tell me that you'll never love anyone else as you do me."

"Only you, Lucille. Never doubt it."

She wrapped her arms around him and rocked as if they were children again, humming his lullaby. They laid there until the clock struck the hour, when Thomas reluctantly murmured that they had better dress before Margaret came looking for them.

=^=^=

Thomas hoped that would be the last of Lucille's jealousy, but it was only a foretaste of what was to come. The more Margaret treated him as a prize pet, the more Lucille demanded of him. It seemed an eternity before the contract of the late Mr. McDermott's will expired and Margaret's wealth officially became Thomas's. Lucille began brewing the poison tea a week before the deadline. Margaret was dead within a month. 

It was ten times worse with Enola, because of Lucille's pregnancy. They'd removed to Milan precisely so that no one at home would realise the baby was theirs. The plan was for Lucille to have the child and return with it as if she had adopted an Italian infant, but in the middle of their sojourn, the bank contacted them to inform them their money had been lost in a bad investment. They were destitute in Italy. He'd had no choice but to seduce the first likely heiress they could find.

If Pamela had been homely and unappealing, and Margaret aging but rather sweet, Enola was bright and vivacious. She was alone, and a spinster, it was true, but a young one. She had suffered a disappointment during her first season, rumour ran, and had been shy of men ever since. Thomas wooed her thinking not of himself, or even Lucille, but of the child his sister carried, and his determination to provide for his family.

Lucille hardly saw it that way. Every night when he came home, she demanded to know what had transpired, but then grew angry and even violent when he answered her questions. "You love her, not me," she accused, forcing him to refute the charge. 

With Lucille deteriorating, he accellerated the timeline so that he could marry Enola and bring her and his sister home before Lucille was too unwell to travel. He had never lied so brazenly, but he managed to sweep Enola off her feet and they returned to England. All the while, he was braced for the moment she demanded an explanation about Lucille's condition. She never did.

"When the time come," Enola told her, "you must let me 'elp. I 'ave been… _como se dice?_ Ah, mid-wive?"

"A midwife?" Thomas prompted.

" _Sí, bello!_ Midwife. I 'ave assist in birt' before."

Lucille wished to ignore the offer and start with poison immediately. Unlike Margaret, Enola had no conditions on her wealth. When Thomas interceded to spare Enola's life for the good of the baby, Lucille relented only after lashing out at him with a torrent of invective and threat. She battered at him when he tried to embrace her, slammed the doors on him when he tried to visit her bed, and even brandished a knife when he tried to hide the poison. 

"You'll do as I say," she insisted. "And I say she goes."

"Lucille. You'll need help when the baby comes."

"You'll help. We'll do it together. We don't need anyone else."

"But--"

"Stop thinking of her!" Lucille shrieked. "You said you thought only of me."

"I do--I am!" he protested. "My only concern is your health. And--our child's."

"Yes, think of your child," a third voice interjected. Thomas whirled around. Unnoticed by them both, Enola had entered the kitchen. 

Thomas swallowed. His gaze darted between his sister and his wife. What could he say to defuse the situation? Before he thought of anything, Lucille's face transformed into that of a harpy. She rushed forward with the knife.

Enola screamed but dodged more nimbly than Thomas would have imagined possible. He leapt forward to interpose himself. Lucille was slashing down with the knife; it sliced through the fabric of his coat, but he did not think it had cut him. 

"Lucille!" he shouted, wrapping his arms around her. "Enola, go upstairs," he ordered. He heard her retreating steps.

"What are you doing?" Lucille demanded. "She knows! We can't let her leave."

"She's not leaving yet," said Thomas calmly against her struggling. "And we're not letting her go. You need a midwife." He squeezed her wrist until her hand opened and released the knife. "We'll keep her here until you've safely delivered."

Lucille locked eyes with him for a few moments. "Yes, of course," she answered, collected once more, as suddenly as she had been murderous. "But if she stays, she's going to learn that you're mine." She went from the kitchen, her keys rattling on her chatelaine.

Thomas sat at the table and burst into tears. A few seconds later, he heard Enola shriek again. He shivered. Would Lucille murder her? If so, could they find a way to hide what had happened? They'd had no servants for a long time, except for Finlay, and he was so doddering that no one paid him much mind. But if Lucille killed Enola in a violent way, as she had Mother...could they explain that away a second time?

As for Lucille...he feared that she might injure herself or the child if she overtaxed herself. He knew he ought to rush upstairs and stop the tussle. He could not bring himself to move. 

When he ventured up, heart pounding, Lucille rushed toward him. "What have you done?" he asked, displeased by the crack in his voice. Despite his quaver, the question made Lucille pull up short.

"She'll be all right," she said coldly. "Why do you care so much? You _do_ care about her." Her hand drew back as if to slap him again.

Thomas's eyes widened. "Lucille! Don't! I--I'm thinking of your welfare," he told her. 

"Well," she said, somewhat mollified. "We have no alternative, now. I've locked her in for the time being, but we have to protect ourselves--I won't have her come between us, midwife or no. If you're afraid, I can make quick work of it."

"Lucille...I'm not afraid. But--let me go to her? After all, she did offer to help. I might be able to...to convince her that it's in her interest to forget what she overheard."

"I can just imagine," Lucille quipped. Thomas pleaded with his eyes. "All right," she conceded finally. "Go. But so help me, if you are not successful within one half-hour, I shall do what needs to be done."

Thomas hugged himself nervously as he followed Lucille to the master bedroom--the room he ostensibly shared with Enola. He knocked softly and nodded to Lucille. She turned the key. He let himself in and shut the door behind him.

Enola lay on the bed, curled on one side. " _Per favore, no…_ " she babbled in Italian. Thomas caught only a handful of words: Please, no more, don't.

He shushed her as Lucille had cared for him when he cried and shook with pain after a beating. "It's going to be all right," he said, easing onto the bed next to her. She did not shrink away, but she did not lean in to his touch, either. 

"Your...woman...I try to tell 'er--I already know."

"What?"

"I know she is your lover," Enola revealed. "I know it from ze time we leave Italia."

"But--why come with us? Why did you not call off the wedding?" Thomas asked. 

Enola lifted a quavering hand to his shoulder. The wrist was already purpling with marks from Lucille's grip around it. "I…tell you truth, Tomaso. I think: you are beautiful. And she is beautiful. I think, you 'ave reasons to call 'er sister and not... _come si dice: mantenuta_. And per'aps, after the child--we can.... We can make a life. I 'ave my own secrets, _amore_. Per'aps I will share them with you. If she would let us, I think, we could all be very 'appy."

Thomas struggled to find words. But she went on: "But now…. Your lover, she is too jealous, I think. She is-- _squilibrato_."

"Sister," Thomas corrected automatically.

" _Cosa?_ You do not have to pretend, Tomaso. I already tell you, I know."

"No...Enola...Lucille _is_ my sister." 

Enola's eyes widened in horror and revulsion. Instantly, Thomas felt ashamed--not because he believed there was anything wrong about him and Lucille, but because he knew the world did. From that revelation, he made a quick job of stating his case. Enola had already figured out half of what he told her.

"She'll kill you if you try to leave, or tell anyone about this," he said. "You'll have to pretend the child is yours, when it comes."

"She'll kill me, either way, Tomaso," Enola declared.

She was right, of course. And Thomas said nothing--did nothing, because he loved Lucille. And because he feared her.

=^=^=

Throughout their life, Thomas had always believed one thing was certain--that Lucille would never hurt him, and that they would always be together. He had difficulty conceiving of any sort of life in which they were not there for each other. Lucille was the only person he could count on, the only woman he had ever cared about. After Enola, something changed--not in Lucille, but in himself. 

It had been so easy to justify the others. Mother, because they both hated her, because she was cruel, and because she would have seen to it that they never saw one another again, even if it meant killing one of them (Lucille, presumably). Pamela, because she meant nothing to him. Margaret, because by the end, he'd been just as irritated by her as Lucille was. 

But Enola…. Enola had done nothing to deserve her treatment from Lucille. She'd accepted them as lovers, and while learning that they really were also siblings did shock her, she had managed to accept that as well as Thomas thought any person possibly could do. And she had tried to save the child.

But she'd been right. Lucille had killed her anyway. He couldn't justify that, not when Enola had tried to make things work. Lucille's jealousy had come between them again.

"She was sick," Lucille told him afterward. "She was foul and twisted, Thomas. She actually thought she could touch me."

Thomas blinked. "What?"

"Oh, sweet boy," Lucille said, smoothing his hair. "I forget that you've seen so little of the world. There were women like her in the--the institute," she explained. "I suspected it all along. She thought that she and I would--lie together. As you and I do." One hand trailed down his shirt, over his chest. "No doubt she thought we would all share a bed, eventually." She laughed bitterly. "There's no end to some people's perversion."

"Wait.... All...three? All of us?" Thomas mused aloud. "Is--is that even possible?"

Lucille's hand clutched at him, the nails biting his flesh even through the broadcloth. "No. It isn't." 

When he realized he'd spoken, and upset her, he caressed her cheek in his hand. "I didn't mean--I don't--there's only you, Lucille. I just was, er, wondering."

"No need to wonder," Lucille said. "There will never be anyone else, Thomas. Always together."

"Never apart," Thomas responded automatically. 

"Remember that," Lucille told him, and pushed him roughly to the mattress. 

Afterward, he noted that his wrists were purpling and bruised. He thought of Enola's wrists, how savagely Lucille had beaten her. How like Mother she was in those moments.

The one consolation was that while Enola's money held out, while they were independent again, Lucille's devotion was complete, and her jealousy had no target. 

Even so, Thomas became aware in a million tiny ways that the volatility lurking under Lucille's protestations of love was eerily similar to Mother's. As when they were children, he went out of his way to please her, to make gestures that kept her happy. He worked in his workshop on the machine, of course, but also on the same little toys and trinkets that had amused her. When that failed, he bought her presents, lavished attention on her, made her the centre of his world.

"Do you still love me?" he asked whenever he held her in his arms.

"Of course I do," she replied. "Only never leave me," she continued. "Always together."

"Never apart." 

But the promise seemed more and more hollow with each passing month. The presents he had given her had to be sold to keep the house running. Lucille assured him she didn't care, but he wondered if it made a difference. They sank gradually back into poverty, even as the house sank further into its clay foundations. Their isolated, desolate togetherness took on the air of desperation once more.

To make matters worse, Enola's ghost seemed to haunt him. Lucille's words about Enola's proposed or supposed sexual aspirations echoed in his head. He found himself thinking about the possibilities while they were in bed. He would catch a glimpse of the creamy skin on the underside of Lucille's wrist and a vision would swim before him, of purple bruises on Enola's wrists, of fading blue bruises on Lucille's. His own would ache with the faint memory of the bruises Lucille left on him in her passion. He would consider whether he could countenance bringing anyone else into her sphere. He wondered how long it would be until he had to do it again. He wondered if it might, actually, be conceivable that he could find someone whom Lucille could also love.

As the money ran out again, he set his sights on America. Buffalo's steel refineries offered the raw materials he required to put his design into the production. It was his hope, that time, to win their investment on the merit of his work, rather than once again resort to deception. 

To his great disappointment, Cushing refused his proposal. Lucille had a backup plan, but then, Lucille always planned ahead. Eunice was beautiful, to be sure, but vain and spoiled and, no doubt, Lucille would have taken satisfaction in using and then discarding her. Thomas could not face the idea of another sham. 

He had not counted on meeting Edith. He certainly had not counted on finding her so articulate, enchanting, and captivating as she was. He had not planned to fall in love.

Nonetheless, as he came to recognise the depth of his affection, he wondered whether she might offer the sort of togetherness that Enola had envisioned. Like Enola, Edith was clever and spirited, and more importantly, she seemed open to the new, the strange, and the mysterious. She was so innocent and pure. She seemed, of anyone he had ever met, the mostly likely to curb Lucille's jealousies, to fit into the framework of their lives. Perhaps Lucille would wish to protect her as much as she had always protected him. Perhaps--if she could win Lucille's trust--then he could have them both, with no need for further violence.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you found this both intensely uncomfortable and eerily compelling. It's rather how I feel about their relationship, since it's really more interesting, IMO, than Thomas and Edith's. (Though I can absolutely sympathize with Thomas and thus many authors who want Lucille, Edith, and Thomas to establish a three-way relationship!) Again, this is seriously the squickiest thing I think I've ever written. Please kids, do not ever mistake this for a positive model of relationships!
> 
> In full disclosure, I had this piece about 75% drafted before Yuletide. I had not figured out the ending, and I had not quite brought myself to post it prior to this. I'm just very, very lucky and happy that I was able to secure a prompt that fit what I wanted to show, and that allowed me to go into the dark spaces that I think are necessary to really explore this messy, horrifying relationship. So thank you, Pear, and I really hope this satisfies!
> 
>  **Notes on the Italian:** I used Google Translate, so errors are Google's. I think most of it is fairly common or at least clear from context. Two words you may not instantly recognize: _mantenuta_ : mistress; _squilibrato_ : unbalanced.


End file.
